Tuesday, November 16, 2010

DEATH OF THE SENSIBLE SHOE

The traditional, clunky, lace-up, 'comfortable' shoes that your mother used to wear have virtually disappeared from the market. (Loud cheers).

According to the UK's Daily Mail, over 90 percent of the British women’s shoe market is now dominated by fashion statement shoes, figures reveal, and I dare say (and pray) that the Australian market shows similar figures.

It seems sensible shoes have been replaced by trainers, with more companies now allowing the American style footwear to be worn to work rather than the tough, British, black, leather stalwarts - the boarding school mistress's shoe du jour.

Improved, stronger technology means that today’s shoes with high heels, thin straps and elaborate decorations are now able to easily withstand the rigours of everyday wear, making them practical for most occasions for the first time.

Demand for sheer comfort and practicality - the key reason for choosing sensible shoes - has been fulfilled by trainers instead, which are now seen as socially acceptable across all classes, reports the Daily Mail.

The news brings to an end the decades long association of sensible shoes with countless professions such as nurses, teachers, police officers and traffic wardens.

Debenhams spokesman Ed Watson said: “Women’s sensible shoes may well be leaving their final footprints on the history and landscape of Britain.”

The rise and success of women in the workplace has fuelled an increasing demand for more formal, power-dressing shoes.

Conversely, a decline in the number of women working on factory floors - a once familiar sight in the 1950s and 60s - has also reduced the legal requirement for suitably sensible footwear.

Ed Watson said: “Sensible shoes have provided the soundtrack to so many key elements of British society.

“Thousands of people across Britain still associate them with the comforting tread of a nurse’s shoe on a hospital ward to the steady pace of a WPC on the beat

'In addition, there won’t be a woman in the land who can’t recall what their dad said after they bought their first pair of high heels: ‘Why didn’t you buy sensible shoes ?’

“We want to do all that we can to provide our customers with the options of choosing sensible shoes, so we will continue to stock them.

“However, sales figures show that this once familiar shoe style is in danger of disappearing for good.”